Forest Read online

  Seconds later, she was at her desk writing furiously in a notebook. Luckily, her left wrist was the broken one, and she was right-handed.

  Or was it luck? Wendell’s eyes followed his sister. He closed his mouth, sharpened his wits, and did as he was told. He had a lot to learn, he could see that now. Amber was miles ahead of him in figuring out the world. She understood grown-ups and knew how to get things done. She’d stopped being mad, too. Or had she? Wendell couldn’t tell anymore. She was keeping her thoughts inside, where he couldn’t see.

  “Wendell! What’s happening down at the fire station?”

  “They’re going tomorrow morning to clean out the forest. Chief Teckstar agreed. They’re taking their guns.”

  “Tomorrow morning! That doesn’t give us very much time.”

  “Couldn’t we just go to Dad and everybody and tell them to stop?” Wendell asked. He was beginning to feel nervous about the bus trip to Randomville. “We could explain how the squirrels have been there for ages, and how smart they are, and how they just got scared.”

  “It wouldn’t work,” Amber said. “We aren’t old enough to make it work. Nobody in this town takes us seriously. That’s the price you pay when you’re a kid. It doesn’t mean we have to give up, though. Guess what? I found Professor Spark’s address in the phone book.”

  “But how can we just go barging in on him?” Wendell complained. “He doesn’t even know us!”

  “All the better,” Amber said with a wise nod. Then she lay back suddenly against the pillows. “Oof! My head is starting to hurt again. I guess I overdid it. Listen, I’ve got to take a rest. Will you keep an eye on things for the next couple of hours?”

  Wendell was so pleased with this request, which seemed to show that Amber’s trust in him had returned, that he reported to the backyard immediately for duty. Unfortunately, nothing was happening. The sun was hot. The bushes were limp. He lay down on his back in the shade and looked up at the sky.

  There was a rustling noise coming from the forest. Wendell cocked his head. It sounded like a wave. Or rather, like a series of waves, dashing against the rocks on a craggy shore. He sat up. The rustling grew louder. He stood and gazed across the field. A thick stream of shapes was flowing through the trees over there. Squirrels!

  Wendell climbed the fence and began to cross the field. He kept well back and hid behind bushes when he could. Not that he was afraid. He wanted to observe the squirrels without being seen by them. Where were they going in such numbers? The stream went on and on. What were they planning? He knew they could be fierce and violent. Now they seemed calm, orderly, engrossed in their own mysterious reasons.

  Amber said she understood these creatures. Did she really? Wendell watched carefully. When the last of the squirrels had passed, he began to follow them at a safe distance along the edge of the wood. They were heading somewhere. He thought he would like to see where.

  UPPER FOREST

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT,” Woodbine said, circling Brown Nut for the fourth time. “You seem perfectly all right. Not even a whisker bent out of shape.”

  “I am perfectly all right,” Brown Nut replied.” I keep saying I am, and I am. Will you stop running around me and let me clean my feet? That cage I was in had been some other animal’s den. Exactly what I could never figure out. Its scent is all over me—phew!”

  “And you sound perfectly all right, too,” Woodbine went on happily, while Laurel flicked her tail in amusement. “Just like your old self, sharp and snappy.”

  “I will get a lot snappier if you two don’t stop fussing and allow me to tidy myself up,” Brown Nut replied. “It’s a dirty business being caught in an alien’s nest. Bad food, bad water, and large, greasy paws making grabs from all sides. Uncomfortable, to say the least, though I was never in fear for my life.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “Oh no. The aliens actually thought they were giving me help, the poor things. They are quite sweet when you get to know them. The two you met are brother and sister.”

  “Brother and sister! How could you tell?”

  “Scent, Woodbine. Scent. They smelled almost exactly alike.”

  Woodbine, who had never thought of being related to his sister by any more than a slight resemblance around the ears, opened his mouth to protest.

  “Hush!” Laurel chittered suddenly. “Keep your voices low. Barker’s patrol guards are everywhere in the forest.”

  “Barker’s guards!” whispered Brown Nut in alarm. “What has been happening while I’ve been gone? I heard you speak of armies and gathering storms during our prayer for freedom in the invader’s nest. (Which worked very well. Thank you both.) But I thought you were inventing things to persuade her to set me free.”

  “I wish we had been,” Woodbine said. “The invader has no idea what is happening up here. We tried to warn her, but she couldn’t understand.”

  “Understand what!” exclaimed Brown Nut.

  At this, Woodbine and Laurel drew her away with them to a well-leafed nook, where they could hide and speak softly together. Laurel told of the big alien’s surprise attack on the mink-tails who had followed Brown Nut’s kidnappers through the forest, and of the meeting at Great Stump and the Elders’ decision to call for an army.

  Then Woodbine described the rise of Barker: how he had taken control of the troops and the Elders’ minds, and brought the town to the brink of war.

  “And now he calls me a traitor because I will not join the fight,” Woodbine went on. “You see, I don’t believe the aliens had any more idea of destroying our town than we had of driving them from theirs. They are rather like us in some respects, in their love of nests, for instance, and their incessant chatter. Though what their views are I can’t begin to decipher. It would be interesting to study alien language and alien ways, to see how else one might live in Forest. Perhaps we mink-tails could learn a few things.”

  It was Brown Nut’s turn to smile fondly at this. “Dear baby brother. You’re more starry-eyed than ever. What could the poor aliens teach us? They are as flat and stupid as their land. For hours I sat in that wire cage while nothing, absolutely nothing, went on around me. A few senseless burbles and mutters, a sauntering to and fro, otherwise—”

  “Well, if you knew more about them, you might have seen more,” Woodbine couldn’t help saying in an irritable voice.

  A rattle of branches sounded from not far off, and the three fell instantly silent. They crouched under cover of the leaves as a mink-tail guard troop streamed by not ten feet from their hiding place.

  “I have never seen such grim faces as those on these guards,” Laurel breathed when they had passed. “We must be very careful, Woodbine, not to fall into their clutches.”

  Hearing this, Brown Nut gazed at her brother and Laurel with new admiration. “I had no idea you were taking such a risk in coming to find me in the aliens’ den. How brave you both are!”

  “Quiet! Something else is coming!” Laurel cried. They had barely ducked their heads when another large troop of guards rattled by, eyes combing the trees on all sides. “We have stayed here long enough!” she whispered. “It’s time to move on.”

  “But where?” Brown Nut asked. “The whole forest is being patrolled, it seems.”

  “There’s only one place we can go now,” Woodbine said. “To Great Stump.”

  “Great Stump!” Brown Nut and Laurel looked at him in horror. “But that is now under Barker’s command. We are sure to be arrested if we show ourselves there.”

  “That is true, but listen. The Elders are still in charge of Great Stump, though for how much longer we can only guess. We must talk with the old leaders before they grow too weak to help us.”

  “Well, I would be delighted to tell them about the humdrum lives of the aliens,” Brown Nut said. “They certainly have no plot against our town, being far too caught up in their own flat ways.”

  “And I will tell them my observations of the invader,” Woodbine said, “who nev
er meant to invade our trees at all. She came to escape from her low world and had no idea that we lived here.”

  “The Elders might be interested to know how some aliens showed sorrow when one of their breed killed our squirrels, and took time to bury the dead in the honorable way,” Laurel put in. “They are not all evil.”

  Woodbine nodded. “All right, then. I think we should try to sneak around by the pond. I know a little-used path there that is not so heavily guarded. Brown Nut, you go first as a decoy. If you are stopped, pretend you have just escaped from the aliens and give us time to get away.”

  Brown Nut bent her ears in agreement, but not before looking sharply at her brother. What had come over him? He sounded quite clear-headed.

  The small group set off, their ears tuned to such sensitive frequencies that even faint beetle noises and the distant beat of wings were instantly detected.

  Brown Nut led the way, avoiding the major branchways and running above the mink-tails’ usual level of travel. Woodbine followed, keeping his sister in sight. Laurel came last, a graceful, flitting tail. They ran so quickly and silently that the leaves hardly moved as they passed, and the birds went on singing undisturbed on their perches. Woodbine thought it strange that with all that was happening and threatening to happen in Forest, the town showed so little sign of trouble on its surface. Peacefully it flowed past his eyes, familiar and, all at once, very beautiful. Its colors were deep, its smells were rich, its sounds the comforting ones he’d heard all his life.

  “Oh, Brown Nut!” Woodbine would have called, if they had not at that moment been in such danger. “Look, just look, at how lovely everything is!”

  And she would have scoffed, probably, and told him it was about time he noticed where he lived, instead of thinking always of faraway places. Here Woodbine began to construct a theory (as he ran along) about how a squirrel longs for the places where he is not, and appreciates the place where he is only if it is suddenly in danger of being blasted out from under him. Hmm-mm, yes. How true. How very, very—

  Branches thrashed on all sides of him. With incredible speed, Woodbine found himself surrounded by mink-tail guards.

  “Halt! This way is closed.”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t—”

  “But who is this?” boomed a large, long-whiskered guard, lumbering forward for a closer look. The others in the troop perked up their ears.

  “Aha! Woodbine. I thought I recognized you.” The guard leered into his face, then motioned to two mink-tails behind him. “Here! This mink is wanted for questioning. It is Woodbine, the well-known traitor. Take him at once to the Supreme Commander’s camp. But wait! Another spy has been caught.”

  Woodbine turned to see Laurel struggling with three guards in the tree just behind! In short order, they had subdued her and dragged her across to his branch.

  “Name, please!”

  “Laurel.”

  “You are charged with consorting with the cowardly traitor Woodbine. Do you deny it?”

  “No.”

  “Take her away. Take them both away to the Supreme Commander’s camp.”

  “Oh, Laurel, I’m so sorry!” Woodbine tried to whisper to her as they were jostled forward.

  “Silence!” A back foot connected hard with his ribs. “The prisoners will not speak!”

  They were marched away in double-time. Only when the last guard had gone, and the boughs of the trees had resumed their stately poses, did a dark eye peer out between the leaves. Brown Nut hopped forth and cocked her ears in the direction of the departed guard troop. With a small sniff, she began to follow in its path, moving as quietly and unnoticeably as a ray of light through the forest.

  The afternoon was beginning to fade into the soft shades of early evening when Woodbine and Laurel arrived at the grove of pine trees that Barker had chosen for his camp. Never had they seen so many military troops in one place, so many guards marching and commanders issuing orders. The place was swirling with activity, and a continual rustle of pine boughs sounded on all sides. At the same time, a dull thunder rose off the forest floor from the heavy traffic of paws passing across it. Barker’s troops had taken to the ground to practice their power swarms, which were so large and unwieldy that no tree would serve for training.

  “Right flank, close! Left flank, swing!” The commanders’ shouts echoed through the air. “Now attack straight ahead. Now drop back and swarm!”

  The scene chilled Woodbine to the bone. When he turned to Laurel, he saw both fright and disgust in her eyes, and her long-ago words in the blackberry bush came again to him.

  “What have we idiot mink-tails come to?” she had cried.

  Well, what indeed.

  “You! Prisoner! Into this hole.” Woodbine was forced into a small, dark pine-tree den, sticky with sap. Behind him came Laurel, though there was hardly room for two. They crouched together flank to flank.

  “I have never seen mink-tails act in such a brutal manner,” Laurel whispered. “It’s as if they enjoyed it. What will they do to us next?”

  “I have no idea,” Woodbine whispered back. “I suppose we will be kept here until Barker decides to question us.”

  This was such a grim prospect that the two were shortly reduced to silence. Then night fell, cutting off what little light there had been. In great discomfort, they managed to doze.

  Long after midnight, when most in the camp had finally settled down, Woodbine was woken by a soft scratching noise. It seemed to come from the back of their tiny den, though there was no room there for so much as a cricket.

  Scratch, scratch. Pause. Scratch, scratch.

  “Someone is outside, scratching on the tree bark!” whispered Laurel, who had also been wakened. With some difficulty, she raised her back foot and rubbed it against the inner wall: Scratch, scratch.

  Scratch, scratch! The message came back immediately.

  “It’s Brown Nut!” Woodbine hissed into Laurel’s ear. Two mink-tail guards crouched not more than four feet away, near the entrance of their prison.

  With a tremendous heave, Woodbine and Laurel managed to turn their poor wedged bodies around. Their mouths now nearly against the sticky back wall, they began a low cluttering, deep in their chests.

  They were answered! An instant later, Brown Nut’s distinctive chirp came through the wood. She was certainly brave to have crept to the very center of Barker’s command post. Woodbine felt a surge of admiration for her, but also fear. She must not be caught!

  Her message to them was bleak. Escape was impossible at present. Their prison den was heavily guarded. A huge surprise attack against the aliens was scheduled for that morning. Barker was taking no chances that his plans would be given away.

  “I overheard a guard say that Barker plans to question you personally, when the attack is finished,” Brown Nut whispered through the wall. “It won’t be pleasant, I’m afraid. Try to be calm. I’ll stay as near as I can.”

  “Please don’t stay near! You’ll just end up in here. And there’s no room, even for us!” Woodbine hissed back. He was interrupted by the sharp voice of one of the guards.

  “You, traitor! What is that muttering I hear?”

  “Um…ahhh…” Woodbine and Laurel shrank together.

  “Shut up in there, or we’ll come and shut you up ourselves. We’ve been taught how to do it shockingly well, and can make things most uncomfortable for you. In fact, we would welcome the chance to try out our new education, ha, ha!”

  Several minutes passed before Laurel dared to lean over and whisper in Woodbine’s ear. What she said sent shivers down his spine:

  “Woodbine, listen! Barker has become the most evil sort of dictator. He has stirred some dark impulse toward cruelty and power in the mink-tails. We must get to the Elders soon if we are to stop this horror. One thing becomes clearer with every passing hour: the town of Forest has been invaded by an enemy ten times more deadly than the aliens of the Lower Region!”

  LOWER FOREST

  THE U
PSTAIRS HALL WAS so dark when Amber stepped out into it that for a moment she lost her bearings. She reached for the wall to steady herself and nearly fell over when it wasn’t there. Her broken arm jerked painfully in its sling.

  “Ouch!”

  “Amber? Is that you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Whew! I thought it was Mom,” Wendell rasped from the doorway of his room. “I’ve been waiting here for hours. I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up.”

  “Sh-sh! What’s that clanking noise?”

  They stood still for a long minute, listening. From their parents’ room, a great whistling of air could be heard, punctuated at intervals by slurps and half-choked snorts.

  “That’s Dad,” Wendell whispered. “I can’t hear Mom.”

  “Come on, let’s get going,” Amber hissed, passing him on her way to the stairs. “No more talking until we get outside.”

  It was 5:10 A.M., and night was still very much in force. Amber noticed, as she closed the front door behind them. They walked away swiftly, down the center of the road. The streetlights made their shadows tall and thin. Above their heads the great trees of Forest spread black limbs, empty now of any squirrel activity.

  With her good arm, Amber hitched the knapsack higher on her back. Inside were her wallet, the map of Randomville, her notebook, and the library’s copy of Woodland Animals and Their Habitats by A. B. Spark. Her head was clear and cool this morning, and she’d remembered everything. The swelling from the gash on her chin had gone down. Now the bandage felt enormous.

  “I must look like a war refugee,” she joked to Wendell.

  “More like someone who got blown up in a restaurant,” he replied, gazing at her with such seriousness that she put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug.

  “The bus leaves at five-thirty-two,” she went on in businesslike tones! “It costs three-fifty for a round-trip ticket for one. It arrives at six-oh-three. We’ll eat breakfast when we get there, in the station.”